Space

Outer space is a unique natural resource that is often ignored. As more opportunities to utilize this resource emerge, work at RFF helps policymakers who will need to design comprehensive guidelines that clarify near-Earth ownership, responsibilities, and pollution protocols to help regulate the use and development of space.

Satellite data are valuable to society when they are used to make decisions that affect our well-being. Documenting these use cases can help demonstrate return on investment in satellites and data applications, and shape priorities across future investments.

RFF Fellow Yusuke Kuwayama introduced RFF’s Consortium for the Valuation of Applications Benefits Linked with Earth Science (VALUABLES), a cooperative agreement between RFF and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

RFF’s Yusuke Kuwayama sat down to discuss the new RFF-NASA consortium to help experts better understand the socioeconomic benefits of Earth observations, including the value of satellite information on groundwater and natural disasters.

Indemnification, the nation’s approach to managing some of the risks associated with the launch of privately owned rockets carrying our satellites for telecommunications, Earth observations, supplies for the International Space Station, and other services, is on its way to becoming a new annual rite of winter.

A recent article in The Atlantic Cities highlighted a research paper published in Science by Jay Famiglietti, a professor of Earth System Science at the University of California, and Matt Rodell, Chief of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.